Star Trek: Online

In fact the Devs mentioned the department head thing is coming along faster then they expected.

 

That's possibly the one thing I'm most excited about right now.

 

Ok. But 'Department Heads' is one thing - I'm talking about a more fundamental change to the way bridge officers work.

At the moment, there is no way of nominating a 'Flight Controller' or 'Tactical Officer' from your officers, and there aren't posts like the 'helm' or 'ops' for them to work at. Indeed, the only reason for calling them 'bridge' officers at all is because they sit on your bridge, looking like a 'real' bridge crew'. But apart from that, what they really are is an NPC commando squad, each with 'magic' powers for your ship.

I'd love it if canon Trek divisions/departments were introduced, so that things like generic 'science' BOffs were split into true 'Science Officers' and 'Medical Officers', with proper skills to match, or the Command division allowing for functioning First Officers and pilots. For example, a Chief Medical Officer would be a dedicated medic for any away team, as well as affecting crew recovery on a ship. Similarly, a Helmsman/Flight Controller would affect ship speed/manoeuvrability, as well as shuttlecraft operations.

It'd also get rid of the issue of the arbitrary 'BOff assignments' - instead of the 'X Tac, Y Sci, Z Eng' for each ship class, you'd have a 'Helm', 'Ops', etc. and a dedicated officer for each post, with all ships following the same system, just like on TV.


It's a massive change, I know, but one that would really make officers more useful than they currently are, as well as injecting a much-needed shot of STAR TREK into the way the game works, not just how it looks. I honestly believe that the crew dynamics of starships are fundamental elements of what makes Trek 'Trek', rather than generic sci-fi, and by adding them to STO, the game would stop feeling so much like a candy-coating of 'Trek' on a game mechanic that might as well be any other sci-fi RPG (and I say that as a gamer with many hours clocked on the likes of 'Knights of the Old Republic' and the 'Mass Effect' series!).

 

I'm currently focussing on Diplomatic Experience with my newest character and I learned a great deal about how to advance my diplo rank quickly.

Here is my advise for anyone who would like to get the rewards the diplomatic achievements offer.

First of all, don't wait until you become a Vice Admiral or even a Captain to collect DXP.

Start as soon as you get access to the first Exploration cluster.

When you enter a cluster system only accept the objective if it's an investigation mission or aid the planet.
Secure system is fun but doesnt get you anything except a meager reward of normal XP.
Also pay attention to your officer giving you the heads up on a ground based investigation.
If it's the tactical officer avoid it, it's usually the science officer who wants you to scan some artifacts or anomalies.
Although it's not save to assume that you wont run into enemys anyway.
But if you do, you may be able to get your main objective without combat if you can avoid detection. It's not possible to do this on a base but sometimes on open ground and certainly in space. If you make it through without firing a shot or be fired upon you get the DXP anyway.

Then there are the story based Diplomatic missions which you can access at any time. There are 8 of them and can be found on Vulcan, Bajor, Memory Alpha and Starbase 39.

Upon reaching certain ranks and levels you will unlock more diplomatic missions which cant be accessed sooner.

Then there are some diplomatic missions like The Breen Patrol which can be repeated daily.

When you rise up in diplomatic rank you will unlock at some point Diplomatic Investigations. It let's you access an exploration mission for a short period of time directly, just head to the designated star cluster.

Once you become an Envoy, you unlock First Contact missions. Which work similar to Diplomatic Investigations. Head to the designated cluster to access it. It will take place in your observation lounge where you have to demonstrate a certain degree of diplomatic skill and trivia knowledge. Generally pretty fun and a nice change of pace. They also give double DPX if you give all the right answers.

The diplomatic system is designed to let you reach the rank of Ambassador probably around the same time you hit level cap if you don't totally neglect the diplomatic branch.

There is a trick to speed things up a bit though.

Most patrol missions include a system or two with non combat objectives as well. Those give you a nice boost to your rank achievment in itself.
But the best part is, you can access those systems even before you unlock the patrol mission that makes that system mandatory.
And the very best part: you can repeat that system as often as you like until you unlock the patrol that makes it mandatory.

So to grind the diplomatic branch most quickly, find a patrol system you havent "unlocked" yet as a mission and repeat it until you are sick of it.

Confirmed non combat system patrols:

Pico, Beyhan, Pellme, Zenik, Celes, Elvren, Icari, Tephrei, Muso, Khaiell, Dera, Aihai, Fvillhai, Vhoran, Llaiir

There are some more in Klingon and Cardassian space which I havent investigated yet.

Personally I recommend Fvillhai System. It's a high commander level mission normaly. So plenty of time to farm it if you start early with the diplomatic grinding.
You warp in, hit full impuls and scan 5 debris parts. Done in about a minute: 10 XDP
Do that for half an hour and you got yourself about 300DXP.
Edit: I ran into a road bump here. After I did this a few times on a scan 5 things system it stopped giving me DXP. The map apparently needs to reset. So it's best if you rotate between 2-3 different systems. It wil slow things down a bit but still should give you 10DXP every 5 minutes or so.

Keep in mind this is not possible for any rank above Captain, cause as a Captain you will unlock the final patrol missions in Cardassian space. As soon as that happens you can only repeat those missions with the help of lower rank players which are not always at hand.

At the moment I'm a Commander 5 and have achieved Envoy rank. It's still more than 500 DXP I need until full Ambassador but I'm confident that it won't take me longer than making Captain.

 

well in a few episodes there were "collectives that were not an actual part of the main collective...TNG Rogue Borgs, Voyager the stranded borgs that formed their own societies that split up into their own aliance related factions. there are always possiblities that could be done dealing with things...and for the liberated borg in the quests it would be the equivilent of being their own Strike Force depending on which alliegence they belong too...

 

Yeah, but I think you can get there already.
You can be a liberated borg yourself, looking the bart, you can get a Borg Engineer looking the part, you can get a Borg Scientist definitely looking the part. You can almost completely borgify your ship so much by installing Borg technology that it's practically indistinguishable from a Borg ship except by general shape.

 

And diplomacy has some great rewards !! Each level grants you a transwarp to a different location (Starbase 39, K-7, and DS9) and once you reach Ambassador you unlock a new outfit.

 

Attaché doesn't give you transwarp, just unlocks Diplomatic Investigation.

Consul gives you K-7 transwarp.

Envoy gives you Starbase 39 transwarp and let's you grant Diplomatic Immunity to other players. Means they gain a higher speed and won't be intercepted by enemy contacts for the next 5 minutes.

Ambassador gives you DS9 transwarp, the Diplomatic Uniform (the white uni from Insurrection), a bridge officer from an enemy faction and voting rights for some voting buff system on DS9 (which I don't quite understand yet).

 

Yeah, I'm starting my Diplomatic stuff with both characters late on and It's quite hard to get the points when you you've already done the early patrols. However I'm getting there.

 

I'm halfway to the getting the enough Diplomatic XP for the Consol rank and I'm not even at Lt. Commander yet, I haven't even done any of the patrols yet.

 

Everyone's probably done this already, but there are some Ferengi on memory alpha that give you missions with diplomatic xp rewards. You have to run back and forth several times though. I think it's about 30xp you get in total for doing all 3 missions.

I have a question that might seem a bit silly. In space combat, when you're at full impulse and approaching an enemy, is it best to slow to standard impulse just outside of range and wait for weapons energy to recharge before opening fire with full power?

 

^That's always been my tactic.

 

Thanks, Dr Horribl.... I mean, DarkHorizon.

I've been doing this for a while now. It's just that it doesn't appear that everyone uses this tactic and I was starting to wonder if it was necessary. It certainly seems to make a difference.

 

Depends... I have soem characters (engineers) that have an energy boosting ability. I hit that as soon as I go to combat speeds and my energy bars are almost full

 

I wonder if that's what I'm seeing then, Timelord.

It was my first time PvPing with my klingon character the other day and I was in a team of 3. We were totally disorganised and losing about 7-0 when I said to the team, 'let's hit them at the same time, attack their weakest, we need a kill'.

I was sitting under cloak waiting for my energy to level back up and the other 2 went charging in and got wiped out.

Needless to say, they weren't too happy with me. When I explained, I was waiting for my weapons to power up, they just ignored me. We lost 15-0.

 

Yes, that's always the best way. If you don't, not only are your weapons underpowered but your shields have less damage resistance, wasting your alpha strike and making you vulnerable at the same time.

 

During beta, whenever anyone would complain that they were getting hammered in space combat, the very first thing the devs would ask was "are you going into combat on full impulse, or are you stopping out of range to let your energy recharge?"

I usually go to about 15km; some people cut it a lot closer.

 

I use this tactic too, specifically picking/training Lex and Foxton's Engineers to cover it.

 

I'm fortunate enough to have the 'Red Matter Capacitor' - it's a great 'if in doubt, charge 'em up' device. Alternatively, training characters in 'Emergency Power to Weapons' or using a Weapons Battery will do the same, giving your weapons power levels a decent jump-start after using Full Impulse.

 

Personally the only problem I've had with the fourms is arrogant PVPers who think their the end all be all of the game. Especially when without any proof of it they pull the we're the majority so kiss my ass card.